The old, blue eyes squinted into the rising Mediterranean sun and peered down a long line of vines. They had only recently been stripped clean of their clusters of round, dusty, deep purple fruit. Only recently his family had celebrated the culmination of a year’s worth of hard work with feasting and drinking and thanking God.
No sooner does the sun set on the celebration, however, than the dawn of next year’s work arrives. He squeezed his hand tightly around the handle of the pruning knife. This part he liked the least. You spend all year tending and nurturing the vine, cheering the new growth in the spring, encouraging the vine’s maturation through the summer, praying for just enough rain, just enough sun. In the fall, you finally reap the rewards of your long effort, basking in the joy of harvest. Then winter comes. Time for pruning, time for cutting back and cutting away, time for cleaning the healthy branches and burning the dead. But it must be done. He drew in a quick breath, taking in the fragrant seaside air, and raised his knife to his beloved vine.
Jesus said, "I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already pruned because of the word that I spoke to you. Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me."
Note the progression in the metaphor: the vinedresser doesn’t kill the branch he cuts off; he merely completes the process that has already begun. The branch is already fruitless—it is already separated from its source of life. The vinedresser simply finalizes the separation for the health of the whole vine.
How does this happen to us? Why would anyone who has experienced the love of Christ, who has had it flowing through her veins, want to be separated from it? Surely it’s not an active desire. It must be something that happens gradually, almost stealthily, over time. Maybe it’s a grief that cuts deep enough to almost sever the branch from the vine. Maybe it’s a sin so persistent that it poisons the branch like a mold. Maybe a drought of apathy threatens to suck the life from the branch. Whatever the reason, don’t give up.
God can do wondrous things with dead stumps. Isaiah sings about the shoot of new life that will come up from the stump of Israel that had been left for dead in Exile; fruit will again blossom from the dormant roots. God can do it. He did it with Israel. He can do it with you and me.
The vinedresser also has work to do on the fruit-bearing branches. Dead wood is cut away in the winter, but even in the spring useless growth is pruned back in order to nurture the vine. Even those who abide in Christ’s love require God’s continued cleansing.
Here’s a place where our English translation lets us down a little. Jesus says, “every branch that does bear fruit he prunes,” and the verb used there is katharizo, a verb that—outside its technical usage in the field of viticulture—is usually translated, “he cleans.” The word is echoed in the next verse, though we might miss it in the English translation: “every branch that does not bear fruit he cleans so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.”
We need continual cleansing, and it is accomplished through Christ’s convicting word. His command, “Love one another as I have loved you,” and his perfect demonstration of that love on the cross, cuts us to the quick and exposes our sin—it brings to light the parts we would rather leave in the dark, the diseased parts of the branch that need to be removed.
Where do you need to hear that convicting word? What needs to be pruned? I’ve often heard that one shouldn’t pray for patience: the answer to that prayer is sometimes unpleasant. I think I have a prayer we should offer with even more trepidation:
“God, prune me. It must be done, but I know it is going to hurt. I want to be healthy, I want to bear a bumper crop of fruit, but I know cleansing is needed. The fine, spring pruning is needed; the severe, winter stripping is needed. So, I trust myself to your hands, the hands of the vinedresser who tirelessly and lovingly cares for his vine. Be gentle, but do what must be done.”
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